My Meant To Be
by Oyuki
Summary: It's hard when you've found who you're meant to be with and not know if they feel the same way. Especially if that someone is your best friend...


AN: My come back fic! Yes! It's been a while but here I am with a brand new fic. Woo hoo! I hope you guys like it! This is going to sound retarted and corny as hell, but I have to say that this particular fic was inspired by listening to too many NSYNC songs for the last couple of days. Yes, you heard right. I really, really did say NSYNC. Especially one of their songs from their last album calld "Something Like You" and one from their first album "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You" (that song should win the longest title ever award or something). Anyway, you won't see too much Hilde POV, it's third person and it focuses on Duo.

DISCLAIMER: Duo and Hilde aren't mine. Neither is Arianne for that matter. I borrowed her name from my best friend.

My Meant to Be

by Oyuki

Duo sighed and hung his head. Another failed attempt at a date. It was his third disaster in a month. What kind of guy had three horrible dates in a month? What kind of guy didn't go for invitations to "come in" from gorgeous women? He banged his head against the wall at the answer. He did. He ruined perfectly good dates with perfectly good women and turned down offers of sex from incredibly hot, incredibly horny women.

He was such a loser. He knew this behavior had nothing to do with his recent break up with this long time girlfriend. Nope, absolutely nothing to do with it. It was something else. Totally something else, and he'd do well to admit it before he spent the rest of his life alone. He shook his head and headed to his room.

He flopped himself face first onto his bed and groaned in frustration. What was wrong with him? He was a healthy, and not to toot his own horn, but a damn good looking 26 year old man who turned women down left and right. He had to beat them off with a stick and he turned them all down. You'd think that he'd jump at the chance to spend the night with a beautiful woman after his break up. But no! No, no, no! For Pete's sake, he hadn't had sex in four months. And he didn't just turn down sex, he had to go all the way and also turn down companionship too.

Damn, his life was sad. But it hadn't always been so. Just lately. It had all started about two months before his break up with his girlfriend of three years. When she'd started hinting about marriage. To him.

It wasn't that he didn't want to get married. He did. He wanted the whole thing, with the kids and the white picket fence and the dog. Just not with her. And that was where his problem was. After Arianne, his girlfriend, had hinted that it was time to settle down, bells and alarms immediately started going off in his head. And he'd panicked because he realized that as much as he loved Arianne, and as much as he wanted the perfect suburban life with the kids and the dog, he didn't want her as his leading lady. He wanted somebody else.

And that was a scary thought. One he'd tried to avoid thinking about since that day. A thought that had led him to, painfully, break up with Arianne. It had taken weeks of consideration and weighing the pros and the cons of breaking up with her. He knew it would break her heart because she genuinely loved him, and he wasn't going to deny he loved her, but it just wasn't right. There wasn't the right amount of love on his part. It was painful for him to realize this, but he just knew that it was even more painful for her. She'd had all her hopes up and he'd crushed them.

And all for what? For a stupid promise he'd made ten years ago. A stupid, childish promise that had come back to haunt him out of nowhere three seconds after Arianne had started talking about marriage. And after that came the thought, the forbidden thought, that he couldn't think about because it would make it true. And when he admitted it was real and after he made peace with it, he'd realize that he couldn't have it. That the promise would never be fulfilled.

Just as he was about to delve into dangerous and forbidden thoughts, the phone began to ring. Duo looked at the clock beside the phone on the bed stand and knew exactly who it was. He picked up the handset and before he could say "hello" a cheery, feminine voice asked, "How did it go?"

Duo made some noncommittal sound with this throat and the feminine voiced said, "That bad huh? So, what happened?"

He made the same sound and waited for her answer. "Is your face in your pillow again? Or do you need some kind of speech therapy, Duo?"

Duo sighed and rolled onto his back. "My face was in my pillow, Hilde. And it went sour," he answered in an unemotional voice.

"Geez Duo! Again?" Hilde asked exasperated.

"Yes, yes again," he said bitterly.

He heard her sigh dramatically and rolled his eyes. "Okay, well, I can see you're not really in a talking mood, so I'll leave you to ponder for the night. Get back to me tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," he said. "Bye." Duo hung up the phone and rolled onto his stomach again. With his face buried in his pillow, he tried not to think about things that he wasn't supposed to think about. Despite his best efforts though, he found himself remembering the promise he'd made ten years earlier.

* * *

He watched as the wind picked at her baby hair, and how her bangs never seemed to want to stay behind her ears. At fifteen, Hilde was fast becoming a beautiful young woman. He sat next to her in silence, watching her when he was sure she wasn't looking. He felt awkward when he was with her. He had never felt such incredible urge to kiss someone of the opposite sex as much as when he was with Hilde. But of course he would never tell her that, or act upon his urges. He'd ruin their perfect friendship. They had a beautiful friendship going, and he never wanted it to change. But he was attracted to her. He had been since she'd hit puberty three years ago. Well, she wasn't much to look at back then but now, now she was beautiful. No. He would never, if he could help it, do anything to ruin what they had. Because their friendship was worth more than getting to third base or scoring a homer with Hilde Schbeiker.

And as they sat there, on the grassy knoll near their high school, a sixteen year old Duo got up the courage to get a promise out of the girl who had been his best friend his entire life.

"Hey, Hilde?" he asked as he looked up at the setting sun.

"Hmm?" she said turning to look at him.

"We're best friends, right?"

She laughed. "You have to ask?" she said, her eyes shining, the light of the quickly setting sun dancing merrily in her eyes.

"Hilde, if when we're old, like 25, if you don't have a boyfriend and I don't have a girlfriend, I think we should get married," he said hesitantly. "You know, so we won't have to spend our lives alone together or anything since we're going to be old and stuff."

Hilde smiled at him, the twinkle in her eyes making him think she was laughing at some inside joke he didn't know about. "I think that sounds like plan, Duo. We'll get married when we're 25 if we haven't already found someone."

They smiled shyly at each other. "Let's shake on it," he said.

"Okay, but it's gotta be an honorable shake, because this is a promise we can't break, okay?" she said. Duo nodded his head and spit in his hand. Hilde did the same thing and they shook hands.

When they unclasped their hand they both looked at their hands. "That was really gross," said Hilde and wiped her hand on the grass beside her.

"Yeah, I know," he said and did the same thing.

* * *

The next day, Duo called Hilde and asked her if she would join him for lunch at Jennifer's Café, their favorite place to eat.

He sat at one of their tables waiting for her. She was ten minutes late already. He heard the bell on the door toll and raised his head to see her walk in.

"You're late," he said in an accusing tone.

She winced. "I know. I couldn't find these, sorry," she said apologetically pointing at her shoes.

"It's okay, I ordered us the club sandwiches, no cheese with fries on the side and two glasses of orange juice," he said with a wave of his hand.

"Our favorite!" she giggled. "So tell me, what happened last night?"

"I don't know, Hilde. I'm just... I don't know. I don't seem to have any interest in these women I'm going out with."

"Is it because of Arianne?" she asked quietly, her eyes downcast.

"Not at all," he said confidently.

"Then what is it, Duo? You know you can tell me if something's bothering you, right? I'm your best friend," she said. She took her hand in his.

He looked at their hands and took a deep breath. He couldn't do it. He couldn't keep up this pretense. He knew that either way, whether he told he or didn't tell her, their friendship would change. It would never be the same. "That's just it, Hilde."

She looked up at him, confused. "I don't get it."

"Hilde... I can't help but think that– this is hard to say– I can't help but think that... that you're..." he trailed off. Man, he was out of breath and he hadn't even said anything yet.

"Yes?" she encouraged.

He took a deep breath before he started again. "When Arianne started talking about marriage to me, Hilde, I realized that it was all I wanted. Marriage, kids, a dog, a white picket fence, but I also realized that I didn't it to be with her. And about three seconds after she said it, for the strangest reason, I thought about our promise, Hilde."

"Duo– " she started but he held up his hand.

"Let me finish, Hilde. I tried not to think about feelings and things that I shouldn't think about because I knew they were wrong. And as hard as I tried for six months I haven't been able to get it out of my head. And if that tells me anything is that I want to be with you. I'm in love with you, and I have been since I was sixteen. And that's why I made you promise that we'd get married some day, Hilde." He didn't look at her eyes. His heart was probably three times the speed it should have been and his hands were sweating cold sweat. They were clammy and he wanted nothing more than to bolt from the chair.

"Duo... Duo, I saw Ryan last night, and he wanted to get back together, he asked me to marry him," she said quietly.

Duo felt heat rush through his body and pooling in his face. His heart sped up, if that was possible, and his breathing hitched in his throat. His hands started to shake uncontrollably. He felt tears well up in his eyes and if he didn't get out of there he was going to start bawling like a baby. But when he tried to stand up his vision swam and he started to see black dots. He sat back down hard and looked down at the club sandwich he hadn't even taken a bite out of yet. He felt sick. He didn't think it would have taken much for him to drop dead at that second.

"I said no, Duo" she said just as quietly. "I told him I was in love with you, so I couldn't marry him." She licked her dry lips and stared at him. "Duo? Did you hear me?"

Duo closed his eyes and nodded his head. He looked at her and the tears that were threatening to fall rushed down his cheeks. "You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!" he said harshly. He took a minute to regain his composure and then stood from his chair. He walked to her side and kneeled beside her chair. Taking a black, velvet box out of his jean jacket he opened it to reveal a diamond ring, "Will you marry me, Hilde?"

Hilde started to sob quietly. Nodding her head she flung her arms around his neck.

Hugging her back and breathing hard, he said, "Good, because I think I'm going to pass out now."

Hilde laughed into his neck and held him tighter.

The End.

AN: So? Did you like it? Have I lost my touch? Please review!!!!


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